Although I think that some people certainly have done well with Buddhism and other Buddhism-like stances, and although this book was cool and more relevant for this stage of the life cycle IMO for me than the how to die/life in the light of dying books, which are more popular in the Buddha etc space, much like the alternative rock band’s lead single isn’t going to be their singer’s Valentine’s Day letter, right—I still found this to be something that did Not make Buddhism seem more appealing to me. I tried not to get too resentful or whatever about the whole academic/life at 40,000 feet stance, you know; sex isn’t necessarily an easy topic regardless of what magnification lens, if you will, that you use, and I don’t suppose he’ll say anything untrue, either factually or otherwise, even if I don’t necessarily trust him to get the lion’s share of the truth, you know….

As for Buddhism/monastic religion generally, (by which we might even include even most forms even of Protestant Christianity, since ministers and such often seem to have these dry, pseudo-monastic marriages, you know—chess marriages), again, there have been good monastics, but to me now it seems a little exaggerated, a little extreme. Although it is curious to hear about the individuals and tendencies within Buddhism that diverge from the whole patriarchy-custom-on-religion-and-sex thing—at least, now and then, a different shade of neutral colors, right.

…. There are different kinds of Buddhism like there are different kinds of Christianity, and I certainly don’t want to be anti-Asian, but I think a lot of Western people get this chaste hard-on for exotic haughty aristocratic Buddhists getting paranoid about sex and rejecting the race of woman-kind, but the whole thing kinda makes me grateful to live in America—“the world the slaves made”, as one (admittedly optimistic) writer has it.

…. Though of course, there are different religions with the same name/hero name, right. One doesn’t say one is a Christian if one isn’t, if one wants to do well—though one can always be a curator or a colonialist by that path, a noble path; they are all noble men, Brutus and Cassius: they are all noble men—but at the same time one lives somewhere and one has neighbors, and one does not really escape Jesus in America or the hero name of one’s youth too completely, and one does not do well to be too bitter (a cliche word, I’m told, but), or rejecting. And in a more extreme way, yes, in a rather different way, one can live in the old religion or hero name—that of Buddha or Christ or whatever—and complete (re-complete, I guess) it without displacing the names one was taught before and which others use. Thus, “Love is the Path; hatred and ignorance are also the Path….” instead of, you know, “God killed me good, bro; I’m dead and buried and cold, and I’m lovin’ it.” (do-do-do-do: McLightenment!).

As for me, I don’t see the obligation to be loyal to an idea or a book or an authority or an institution or an ism, which is what religion usually seems to be; loyalty to social control itself is a misuse of one’s loyalty…. But of course, one would have to go out of the world to find a path no one has ever sinned on, you know. And perhaps we shall go out of the world, to a new world not marred by colonialism and such: but what’s the hurry? Journeys are not made safe by hurrying. We are here, and this is the Path, you know.

…. It can be quite bad though. For many Buddhist’s a woman’s beauty is: (a) the only good thing about her, and (b) her fundamental flaw, which makes all good men hate and fear her.

…. And the other thing is that it’s an academic book and academics, especially the hyper-negative ones I attract, tend to be hyper-negative mind people who are attached to the theories and the negative, and they tend to talk about calmly and normalize/give attention to, very angry/exclusive people, too, and, that’s one kind of Buddhism(s) book, and one kind of (the) Buddhism(s). Thomas Aquinas and his club is like that, and sometimes Buddhisms aren’t all that different.

But an 80 page book by Thich Nhat Hahn would be very different, maybe more different than your average aristocrat of the breakfast table or beat-down wife Christian devotional is from the just encredibly enfeebling mental machinations of Aquinas, you know.

…. But the sun and the moon were in the same places in the sky in Burma or Japan as in Italy or Sweden: and there were a lot of rules, and a lot of sexism, you know. Good Boy Tribe has rules that you must follow, little one. Don’t make the Good Ones Who Came Before cast you away from the Holy Zone, little one…. Things like, (starts describing sex acts in courtroom language). ~~Kermit the Frog nods and accepts this not just as normal, but as positively Normative. This is religion—not sex! Hallelujah! I can feel the Buddha realms opening: just shame your mom for being such a shameless hussy, and, is any super-human feat of logic now impossible for you? I mean, you know what she had to DO to become a ~mother, right? Here, this works best visually….

…. I remember when I first saw this title, like, “The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality”, and I was like wow, it’s so easy to get negative about sexuality, but I bet the Buddhists must really have the whole non-dualism, no attachment no aversion, the Middle Path, the loving kindness way into the future….

(Owen Wilson) (makes dismissive sound with lips) Yeah! When we’re not opening up a can of holy whoop-ass on the movie stars and the frat boys! (high fives Vince Vaughn)

Lol. Lol, so many times.

…. Re: East Asian transgression-positive Buddhism

I don’t know how easy it is to transform legalism into something else, successfully, but I do think that a lot of mothers would benefit from a little sex and transgression. You don’t have to transgress with everyone, all the time, in ways that you shouldn’t, but when you’re just a no-transgression Nelly you become a bit of a superficial idiot, you know. And you don’t really care. “Ok children, how are we going to get through life? By following the rules, that’s right! And by obeying the…. Bureaucracy, that’s right! Because remember, always obey and never do bad, or else you’re no good. It’s so easy to get along with me! Yay, everyone’s happy! Everyone had Best be happy, now….”

…. But yeah: according to a book I saw once in Barnes & Noble, there’s a Buddhist path to abundance, so maybe there’s also a Buddhist path to having fun, you know. It would be less love-and-marriage centric, less baby-and-carriage oriented, than is considered ‘normal’, you know. (If that’s a desirable or even an attainable state, in truth.) It would be more a gentle play with words and forms you know to be illusions…. After all, it’s the seriousness of the average person’s sex play that provides the violence, and perhaps even the majority of the roughness, right. “Give me child or I die.” “Lie with me, woman: or I’ll kill you.”…. “Out of all of the butterfly wings, today yours are the most blue….”

But, in terms of actually-existent historical societies, what could exist in an individual, a pattern like that, often inspired extreme anxiety in the hierarchy, you know. That’s how it was.

…. Obviously with shamanism and the natural life, many colorful outcomes are possible, giving rise to many scare stories in the religions like Buddhism and so on, and clearly a minimum of honesty and (sometimes subtle) respect should be offered to life and to each other, so that one’s heroic journey does not become a pathetic anecdote, a scare story. But I no longer simply dismiss shamanism and its attendants as I once did, although evil is certainly possible in shamanism—failure. Evil, failure. But where there’s good, there’s the possibility of evil, in this age, and it’s not that shamanism is the evil twin of what has the possibility for good, the good-boy-religions, or else, why not simply believe that religion is the evil twin of the mind? Lord knows the masters of the good boy faith want us to be a little snobby perhaps….

…. I have read a little bit about queer relationships, but I’m sure I’m not qualified to speak about Buddhism and queerness in Asia, you know—as pedantic as it sounds to say, ‘I’m not qualified’, of course.

…. Academics are open to the criticism of being critical; however, it is an important problem that sometimes “agreement” between “East and West”, or whatever, obviously including if the West is the dominant partner, but even if it isn’t, is rather less valuable if it is simply a case of men agreeing with men internationally, you know.

…. Although Bernard certainly resists the idea of simple truth, useful in disarming truth-as-a-hammer, although open to the charge that he doesn’t say much or mean much, but uses many words, you know.

Still, often scholars like him provide useful raw materials for decisions, even when they don’t openly come to a decision themselves.

…. It’s certainly true that Buddhism sometimes (or some Buddhisms, if you like) kinda encourage people to think that if you decide you can simply become a monastic and never think about sex again, but for the great majority of people, this is simply not realistic; it’s also naive to imagine that in anyone’s life it comes without great and sometimes non-obvious costs, too.

Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies between the normative teachings of Buddhism and what its followers practice.

Framing his discussion on some of the most prominent Western thinkers of sexuality--Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault--Faure draws from different reservoirs of writings, such as the orthodox and heterodox "doctrines" of Buddhism, and its monastic codes. Virtually untapped mythological as well as legal sources are also used. The dialectics inherent in Mahvyvna Buddhism, in particular in the Tantric and Chan/Zen traditions, seemed to allow for greater laxity and even encouraged breaking of taboos.

Faure also offers a history of Buddhist monastic life, which has been buffeted by anticlerical attitudes, and by attempts to regulate sexual behavior from both within and beyond the monastery. In two chapters devoted to Buddhist homosexuality, he examines the way in which this sexual behavior was simultaneously condemned and idealized in medieval Japan.

This book will appeal especially to those interested in the cultural history of Buddhism and in premodern Japanese culture. But the story of how one of the world's oldest religions has faced one of life's greatest problems makes fascinating reading for all.

> Hourmant Louis. Faure (Bernard). Sexualités bouddhiques. Entre désirs et réalités.
In: Archives de sciences sociales des religions, n°92, 1995. L'islam en europe. pp. 104-105. … ; (en ligne),
URL : https://www.persee.fr/doc/assr_0335-5985_1995_num_92_1_1010_t1_0104_0000_4

> Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger, T. 185, No. 1, MATÉRIALISME ET NEUROSCIENCES (JANVIER-MARS 1995), p. 105 : https://drive.google.com/file/d/11oKXxTphtUGy67iAOAXxeXaCkPvV4EEN/view?usp=shari...
> Revue Bibliographique de Sinologie, NOUVELLE SÉRIE, Vol. 14 (1996), pp. 366-367

> COUPS DE CHAPEAU — L’ouvrage de Bernard Faure, français qui enseigne l’histoire des religions d’Asie à l’université de Stanford en Californie, nous fait pénétrer dans un domaine mal connu, celui des Sexualités bouddhiques (aux éd. Le Mail). Il y rappelle que la pratique de la méditation ch’an ou zen « pourrait se caractériser comme une pratique à corps perdu, corps retrouvé » : le corps est à la fois un sac de peau et d’excréments et le lieu de la maîtrise où se modèlent les quatre attitudes majestueuses du Bouddha : marcher, se tenir debout immobile, assis, ou couché. Partant, il n’y a rien de condamnable si le pratiquant agit avec respect, droiture et compassion. Ce livre passionnant fourmille d’exemples concrets tirés de la tradition qui prouvent que tolérance n’est pas laxisme et que ascèse peut coexister avec transgression. Mais dans tous les cas le corps doit être considéré comme un « pivot sacré ».
—Nouvelles Clés, (3), Automne 1994, (p. 88)